


Third Time's the Charm

by songsmith



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Fairy Tale Style, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26351587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songsmith/pseuds/songsmith
Summary: To be a fairy godmother is a heavy responsibility, especially in an era when science is taking over from magic.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13
Collections: Narnia Fic Exchange 2020





	Third Time's the Charm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/gifts).



Many years before your grandparents were born, when the very last of the great wooden sailing ships were being built and a lot of people were fighting about flowers a very long way away, science and rationality were firing the imagination of Mankind. Belief in magic was quietly being bustled aside to the province of the country superstition and the nursery, where it could be safely sneered at by those who did not understand it. And of course, more and more children were being packed off to schools to have their heads stuffed full of Logic and Literature instead of wisdom and stories. In the end, there was no one left who might have learned magic from the older folk. All in all, it was a rotten time for creatures of magic. Although the disbelief of ordinary humans could not harm them, as you may have heard in stories, it did make working any magic frightfully difficult, as people tend to be both nosy and easily frightened by anything they deem 'odd.' Many magic-folk simply gave up the practice altogether and resigned themselves to living without. 

But it is very true that a promise is a sacred thing, and anyone who uses magic knows to be very careful making one because breaking a promise will nearly always have terrible effects later, when you least expect it. So it was that one lady found herself musing on the best ways to use her magic even as men came into town stringing wires to carry the clacking of the telegraph and laying rail to send roaring metal machines barreling through the countryside casting coal smoke all about in their wake. You see, some years ago, she had made a very important promise, for this lady was the many-greats granddaughter of a powerful fairy, and like many fairies, she had been asked to serve as godmother to the children of a particular family, the Ketterlys. There were three: Mabel, Letitia (whom everyone called Letty), and the eldest and only boy, Andrew. 

You may have heard that a fairy godmother grants wishes, but that is a silly story made up by people who don't remember much at all about magic. The real job of a fairy godmother is to make certain children grow up to be good and upright and kind, and of course to protect them from wicked magic. A proper fairy godmother can use very powerful magic if necessary to help her charges, even if she isn't very strong otherwise, but fortunately Millicent (who preferred to be called Millie, but was mostly called Mrs. Lefay, even though she had never been married) had very strong magic indeed in her family.

When the children had been very little, she had often entertained them with the sort of stories and games that make most grownups shake their heads with quite silly smiles before they rush off to Important Matters. As all children -- and fairy godmothers -- know, those are the very best sorts of stories if one is to grow up to be true and noble and brave. That had really been all that was needed for Mabel and Letty, who were growing into the kind of sensible girls who always remembered to be kind to strangers (no matter how odd they looked), heed advice they were given (even if it made no sense), and never take things without asking (even if it didn't seem like there was anyone to ask). 

Of course in those days people thought girls didn't need much education, so Mabel and Letty had stayed home to learn things like French and dancing, needlework and elocution from their governess, who was not magic but quite sensible all the same. Meanwhile, Andrew had been dragged away from the mud puddles and toadstools and interesting pebbles, stuffed into a smart uniform with a stiff collar that he was not allowed to get dirty, and packed off to school to have his head stuffed with Latin and Greek, Rhetoric and Philosophy and all sorts of things that do nothing but get people into trouble in stories. He had returned from this experience quite full of himself, puffed up and sadly rather prone to bullying his sisters. All in all, he was turning into rather the wrong sort of boy entirely.

Now there is no promise more important to a fairy than to be a godmother, so you can see Millicent must have taken the matter very seriously indeed, and it was that very problem she was mulling over one summer day as the telegraph lines went a-clattering overhead and the clanging of hammers setting railroad spikes scared all the birds and mice and other creatures right out of Millicent's garden. "There must be three," she told the crabapple tree in the corner, checking it for scab. "Three's always strongest, and that boy needs all the help he can get. What were his parents thinking, my goodness." 

The next day Millie dropped by the Ketterly house with a basket just heavy enough to be awkward. "I had hoped my dear godson might do me a favor," she explained sweetly. "A friend of mine in the next village is ill and I thought to send her some things, but with my lumbago acting up I simply can't be walking that whole way." She set the basket on the table in front of Andrew, pretending not to notice the way Mabel had sat up straighter as if to volunteer. "Naught but a quick errand for a strapping lad like Andrew, though, is it?"

Well, of course he had to say yes after that. No lad that age is immune to appeals to his pride, and with Andrew's being so inflated he was more susceptible than most. So he took the basket and set off, and to his small credit, he did refrain from grumbling about it until he was well out of earshot. I am sorry to say that once he began grumbling he enjoyed it too much, and became rather rude indeed. He stamped along the road, kicking at whatever stones or twigs he found, and grumbled loudly when he was alone and quietly when he happened to pass a grown-up.

As you may have noticed, being angry takes a great deal more energy than being happy, so Andrew soon found himself tiring. He gave up kicking at things and stamping and instead trudged along, the basket feeling heavier and heavier with every step he took, until it dragged at his arms and nearly brushed the road. A cart rumbled up behind him, and the driver looked very sorry for the tired lad. "Hop up," he invited, "I'll give you a lift."

Andrew brightened, but then he looked at the back of the cart and saw that it was all full of vegetables, so that he would be obliged to sit amongst the lumpy sacks and be bruised by turnips at every bump in the road. (If you have ever dropped a turnip or potato on your foot while peeling them, you know they can feel very hard indeed!) So he shook his head, "I'm all right," he said, attempting to straighten up and look like a 'strapping lad.'

"Suit yourself," said the cart driver, and went on.

For a little while Andrew felt better, and he marched along thinking himself quite grown-up and responsible. But it is not much fun to be responsible where no one can see you, and the basket soon started dragging at his arms again. His steps slowed and the basket swung low and his chin thumped against his chest. All in all he made a most pathetic sight going along the road like that.

A second cart rumbled up, and this driver also felt very sorry for Andrew. "Hop up," he invited.

Andrew was very pleased at this, and he took a quick step toward the cart, sure that even the lumpiest of sacks would be better than walking. But just as he got close to the cart, a wave of stench assaulted his nose. It had obviously been used to take livestock to market, and quite recently too. He was certainly not going to ride in that! "I'm all right," he said, although it came out more like "malm digh" as he had his hand clamped firmly over his nose.

"Suit yourself," said the cart driver, and went on.

By now Andrew was feeling very sorry for himself, and he was hot and thirsty and hungry in addition to tired. "I say," he mused, "there must be some tasty things in the basket. Surely no one will miss one or two. I'll just have a little rest and a nibble." So he found a spot of stone wall along the road and climbed up to sit, then turned back the cover on the basket.

There were many things in the basket, all kinds of greenery and berries and nuts and other things Millie had carefully gathered, but Andrew, who had been expecting biscuits and cakes, was sorely disappointed. "Well, nevermind," he told himself, "I'll have some anyway. It'll be much harder to miss a few leaves, at least!" Poking about in the basket, he quickly found a beautiful bunch of berries, all dark purple and glistening. He plucked one from its stem and popped it in his mouth.

"Hi there!" someone shouted, "don't! Spit it out, boy, quick!" Andrew was so startled he obeyed, and pop! the berry sailed across the road. Quick as you like, the rest of the berries were snatched from Andrew's hand. He looked round and saw them being closely examined by a sandy-haired youth of the age where grown-ups think you are quite a child still and children think you are quite grown-up. He was wearing smart tweeds in the style that city folk believe to be rugged and outdoorsy but are impractical for any real work, and there was a bulging and ill-packed rucksack strapped to his back. "Hypericum androsaemum," he was saying now, "positively. Look here, can't you tell when something's poisonous?"

"I thought they were bilberries," Andrew admitted a bit sheepishly. He had used to go picking things in hedgerows with his sisters, of course, but since he had gone off to school he had gotten all the good things he used to know shaken right out of his head by new facts crammed in. "Anyway, Mrs. Lefay told me to take this to her friend who's sick, it should be all right."

"She doesn't know how to identify plants any more than you, then," said the youth, peeking into the basket. "Aethusa cynapium, Gyromitra esculenta... there's not a thing in here that's safe! If I were you, I'd chuck the whole thing into the woods and you'd be doing the old bat a favor."

Andrew was rather put out at having trekked all that way with a basket full of worthless plants. (They weren't, of course, but the youth was the sort to think medicines were powders and potions you get from the chemist and if he'd met something as common as horehound in its native state, he'd tell you it was called Marrubium vulgare, or ballote in some of the old Latin texts, and nevermind anything it might actually be useful for.) Picking up the basket, Andrew shook the whole contents behind the wall and hopped down. "Jolly rotten," he complained, "making me walk all this way for that!"

"I daresay her eyes are going," said the youth sagely. "Best have the doctor at her, and don't let her go gathering again!" They shook hands (Andrew felt very grown-up doing so) and parted.

A week later, Millie was talking to the lavender. "I just don't understand it," she lamented, carefully pinching off a dead leaf. "The boy's not improved at all -- if anything, he's worse! We'll have to try again. But maybe this time I should keep an eye on him."

That Sunday, as Millie was visiting the Ketterly children, a terrible gust of wind stole her very best hat and whisked it away. It blew into the orchard, where it came to rest at the very top of a tree. "Oh, do fetch it down," Millie begged the children, well aware that as the girls were in their Sunday dresses, they would not be allowed to climb trees, and so Andrew would be obliged to help.

Andrew was not fond of climbing trees, and would have preferred to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground. Furthermore, he was of the opinion that the top branches of the tree were far too flimsy to support anyone's weight. But with his parents being stern about being kind to his godmother, he couldn't refuse. Still, he wasn't about to try those skinny little twigs! Instead, he went and fetched a broomstick before starting up the tree.

If you have ever tried to climb a tree with a nice packet of sandwiches and a book, you know that climbing with something in your hands is tricky to do. A broomstick is much harder to climb with, and I really cannot recommend you try. Andrew had little practice climbing to begin with, and he found it a terrible struggle. His sisters soon gave up watching him slide about and drop the stick, and went to join their parents at the tea-table, leaving only Millie to witness Andrew's struggles.

It must be said in Andrew's favor that he was a very determined boy, and he did eventually climb up the tree, up and up until he was certain the very next branch would crack under so much as the weight of his foot. Taking out the broomstick, he stretched it out -- and out, sliding his hand along until he was holding just the very tip of the stick, and he reached and reached -- but it was no use. He was just a handspan short of the hat.

"Nevermind," he told himself. "I just need a bigger stick." And he came down out of the tree (very nearly cracking his head in the process) and went around to one of the sheds. When he came back, he had an apple-picker with him that was at least twice as long as the broomstick.

It was quite a production to get back up the tree with an even longer pole, and by the time it was done Andrew was quite cross and his clothing was horridly mussed. But at last he climbed to the thin branches, and he stretched out the pole, reaching and reaching -- but it was no use. The apple-picker's basket was just a handspan short of the hat.

Now Andrew was very frustrated indeed, and he came back down the tree with no thought for his skull -- which, fortunately or not, he did not crack open -- or his clothes, which suffered rather more. He very much wanted to abandon the project entirely, but Millie stood there wringing her hands with her most anxious expression and in the end he could not quite bring himself to do it.

"It makes no sense," he said. "If the first pole was too short, the second should have been long enough. Why can't I get the right size?" And he held the apple-picker up next to the broomstick, comparing their lengths and scratching his head dreadfully over the whole matter. Millie watched all this from the side, wringing her hands and biting down her smile.

Now it might have ended very differently except that the neighbor lady was dear friends with Mrs. Ketterly, and had decided to visit. Her daughter being about the same age as Letty, she had brought the whole family along, which obliged her oldest son Frederick to come too. Frederick was sixteen and feeling far too grown-up for 'nursery things' like taking tea with little girls (and being called Freddie, although his mother _would_ keep doing so), and he felt that the reason Andrew might be waving about an apple-picker was bound to be more interesting anyway, so he strolled over to see what was what.

Upon being told about the problem, he nodded very seriously and proceeded to announce that what Andrew needed was something called 'trigonometry', which apparently he would learn at school in the future. Frederick did a lot of scratching about in the dirt with a pencil-sized stick and some squinting at the hat over the tops of various sized sticks planted in the ground, and finally announced that what was needed was precisely twelve-and-a-half feet. The apple-picker was longer than that, which made Andrew rather doubtful, but he went back up the tree -- which was a great deal easier without holding the apple-picker, as Frederick was standing below ready to pass it up to him -- and stood where Frederick told him to stand. Lo and behold, when Frederick passed him the picker and he stretched it out, it easily reached the hat!

Andrew was so pleased by this, and so confused about why it hadn't worked before, that he gave the hat more of a push than he ought. It flew out of the tree and was caught by a naughty breeze, which blew it right out of the orchard and onto the telegraph wires!

"I'm not fetching it from there," Andrew announced, half-falling out of the tree, and wandered off to get his tea.

Millie was feeling rather frustrated by the whole business, and certain that Frederick had meddled in some way he oughtn't, but of course she couldn't explain any of that. She had to smile sweetly and thank both boys for trying, and gave them each a sweetie from her handbag. (Frederick looked down his nose at it, but he took the sweet.)

As she was leaving to return home, she found two men standing under the telegraph wires. One of them had a load of climbing equipment with him which he was rigging to the nearest pole. "I say," he said, upon spotting Millie, "it that your hat up there?"

"Why, yes," Millie replied honestly.

"Now see here, madam," the man said quite indignantly, "we can't be having hats hanging about on the telegraph! Crosses the wires! Then the messages get all mixed up."

"It's a postal offense, that's what it is," said the other man, wagging his head in what he no doubt imagined was a dignified fashion, but which made his muttonchops bounce in comical fashion. "Call the constables, we ought."

"Dreadfully sorry," Millie said. "It was the wind, you see."

"Hatpins, madam!" Muttonchops said. "Or we will have the constables at you, see if we don't."

"Of course," said Millie, and hurried home sans-Sunday hat.

"It's a very stubborn case," Millie told the hawthorn tree. "I can see I shall have to pull out the stops for this. Perhaps a quest -- just a little one, of course, for a little boy. Still, a quest never fails."

"My friend Mrs. Jones has left something very important for me at the old meeting-tree; you know the great spreading oak down the way? It may seem a little odd, but it's frightfully important, so you must promise me you'll bring me whatever you find, even if you don't know what it is."

Andrew was not impressed with these instructions, and he was looking forward very much to going back to school where his dotty old godmother would not be able to send him on errands. But she always had sweets for the children, or a few pence to buy some at any rate, so he didn't want to risk annoying her. So off he went to look for this mysterious whatever-it-was, wondering why old ladies couldn't just use the post like everyone else.

As he walked, he passed a lady whose bag had opened, spilling items all across the road. She waved for him to come help her, but Andrew had already had his fill of helping old ladies, so he hurried on. 

At the next crossing on, two boys not much younger than him were sadly looking at their kite lodged in a tree, but Andrew had already had enough of fetching things out of trees, so he hurried on.

At the last crossing, a big cart full of lumber blocked the road, and nearly ran him down. "Hey!" cried Andrew, trying not to be pushed into some rather prickly hedgerows.

"Sorry, lad," the cart driver called. "Be through in two ticks -- important materials for the railroad, you know!"

"Railroad?" Andrew said, perking up considerably. "Are those big logs going to be rails, then?"

"Sleepers," the driver corrected. "Here, come along and you can watch them lay some."

Forgetting his errand entirely, Andrew eagerly scrambled up onto the box beside the driver. "How far is the line going?" he asked. "How fast can the train run?"

"Train-mad, is it?" the driver said indulgently. "Here now, let's find you someone to talk to." He took Andrew to meet the foreman and the engineer, who were in fact quite happy to answer questions. It turned out that laying rail involved a lot of waiting about for anyone not actually hammering things into the ground. It was horrifically noisy and Andrew soon had a headache from the clang! clang! of the spikes being driven, but it was so exciting her didn't much mind. When a sleeper slid on bad ground and the spike bent and needed replacing, they even gave him the bad bent one by way of souvenir.

Andrew wandered home in a happy daze, only to find Mrs. Lefay waiting for him right in the middle of town. "Goodness you were a long time gone," she said, smiling fondly at him. "Did anything interesting happen, then?"

"Er, well, yes," Andrew stammered, remembering now why he'd been out in the first place, and feeling rather bad about not having her package. "Y'see, I met some men from the railroad, and they let me come and watch! I... I'm afraid I rather forgot to get your friend's package, but I did learn a lot. They even gave me one of the bent spikes, look!" And he dropped the heavy piece of metal into her hands.

Now, as everyone knows, fairies cannot stand the touch of cold iron. Millie was not a full-blooded fairy, but she had enough to do magic, so the iron burned in her hand. She shrieked and flung it away on instinct, hardly registering what had happened except that it felt as if she'd grabbed a pot off the hob without cloth. The spike went flying through the air, straight into a knot of shoppers, who yelled and scattered as the heavy, sharp object hurtled toward them.

Attracted by all the yelling, the local constable came running onto the scene, blowing his whistle for all he was worth. He was a very round sort, having little crime to bother with and mostly spending his days passing the time with this neighbor or that, all of whom had a spot of something to offer, and just now his whole face had gone bright red from the running and the blowing at his whistle. He really looked quite alarming barreling in. "What's all this? What's all this?" he cried, and of course everyone tried to explain at once, with the end result being that no one got heard at all. However, by the end of it he had the railroad spike in his hand and a great many fingers had been pointed at Mrs. Lefay, so he felt he knew well enough what to do.

"Hurling a deadly weapon, that's what it is!" he said. "Gratuitous assault! Gratuitous and indiscriminate! See here, see here, you can't be going about throwing spikes at innocent people. We'll have you up in front of the magistrate for this!" And he grabbed poor Millie by the arm and hauled her away before you could say 'jack rabbit.' (Although why you should want to I am sure I don't know.)

Andrew was rather confused by the whole state of affairs, but what he was most upset by was that the constable had taken the railroad spike too, and so he had lost his treasure. He went home, where his sisters made a terrible fuss about 'poor Mrs. Lefay', and he could only shake his head. "Brought it on herself, didn't she?" he said. "All those odd things she was getting up to." The girls would not be consoled, and finally their parents forbade the entire subject to be raised again. All in all, Andrew thought, he should be very glad to return to school, where at least things made proper sense and followed the rules.

As for Millicent Lefay, I am sorry to say she was shut up in prison, although I am not certain the magistrate wouldn't rather have sent her to a madhouse. She did very poorly there, as it is wicked to lock a fairy away from the outside, and when she was dying they let her out. Whereupon she tried one last time to redeem her godson --

\-- but that is another story.

**Author's Note:**

> Original request: I would like a story about what on earth Mrs. Lefay did to get herself thrown in prison -- and precisely how much the various members of the Ketterly family knew about it and/or were tangentially involved. If you can work in some experiments with the box from Atlantis, that would be even more appreciated!


End file.
